Misdirection on Seasonal Winds

[XLFD]

An early September windstorm in 2010 seems to have dictated an odd policy in Ludington that has been followed ever since: installation of the snow/sand fence starting the Monday after Labor Day. In a Facebook post the City of Ludington rationalized the policy in its header:

"Sand fence will begin to go up on Monday September 9th. You will still be able to access the beach even after the fence goes up. The fence helps to keep the sand where we love it...on the beach(or as close to it as possible). The winds of fall are upon us and this necessary step keeps from having a large clean up bill and an impassible Lakeshore drive."

The post includes the same link used by the City over the last few years to explain their decision to put the fencing up at this time, including some generalizations about the wind and the seasons:

"During a typical fall it's rainy and windy... We do understand your concerns and frustrations when it comes to covering our beautiful beach with ugly sand fence. It signals the end of summer and the end to what most people consider the best time of the year. Each year we have to make that decision as to when we will start the sand fence installation and that is a decision that we don't take lightly."

The majority of respondents to the post are understanding and sympathetic and appreciate the gesture, since the City of Ludington appears to be trying to do its best to have an appealing park and not having to spend big bucks on wind cleanup.

But like the June flooding in 2008, what would you say if I told you the early September windstorm in 2010 was a very rare occurrence. And unlike the flood damage that racked the area in 2008, the City was amply forewarned of strong winds coming to town and much of what happened at Stearn's Beach could have prevented by emergency mobilization of fencing-- but it would have had to take place before or during the busy Labor Day holiday weekend.

And what if I told you that there is a lot more likelihood of a freak windstorm in June than there is in the month of September in Ludington. Would you consider the City prudent for keeping sand fence up through June then? Here's the facts based on historical weather conditions, the first statistics show that September is one of the mildest months for wind in Ludington, even when you include the anomaly of September 2010 in the mix. The following graph follows a nine year sequence of yearly observations at local Station LDTM4 (Ludington, MI):

September loses out to only August and July for the lowest average wind speeds (the black dot within the red variances). June follows, and lest we forget, the summer solstice falls on June 21. The two are close, but further on in that same wind comparison site for Ludington, they have wind observations, directions and speeds, for five years, which includes that very windy September in 2010. Most enlightening is the wind class (speed) frequency bar graph. It shows that in June of these years the wind class fell between 0-10 knots: 81.9 %, between 10-20 knots: 16.8% and 20-30 knots: 1.3%

During that same period, September was milder in all classes at 82.8%, 16% and 1.2%, respectively, even with 2010 as part of the data, as seen below. Is anybody from the City suggesting we leave the snow fence in place through June since the statistics show we should have more devastating wind effects in that month than September?

And just in case you think I'm cherry-picking data from years that support my thesis, which would be odd since the freak 2010 September windstorm is included in both presented cases, this climate website shows the all-time averages for monthly weather phenomena in Ludington, which verifies that from June through the end of September, the average wind speed each month is 6 mph. It also shows that the month of May (at 8 mph) has greater average wind speeds than October (at 7 mph). Yet the City of Ludington begins removing the sand fences before the end of May.

Lastly when we look at the Average monthly wind speeds for cities in the Great Lakes region over the period of recorded weather history, we find that the pattern is true for other places than Ludington. Average wind speeds in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit are at least 10 mph in May, 9 mph or better in June, but in September, these cities average less than 9 mph.

Yet nobody from the City ever suggests that we keep snow fence up through May and June, just that we put them up in a month that has lighter winds and smaller chances of having a devastating windstorm. The 'fall' month of September which has three weeks of summer, which is more than June can say with its three weeks of blustery spring and ten days of summer. 

The misdirection by the City is obvious, they want you to believe the fencing is put up in September because of winds, but the reason is more because the DPW would rather put up and take down fences on a set schedule rather than putting them up on a schedule directed by Mother Nature.  The rewards of potentially extending a second tourist season past Labor Day, or just allowing the natives to enjoy their park after the summer bustle, is offset by the nuisance that they may have to quickly mobilize forces to prepare for an upcoming windstorm.   

As it currently stands, we have snow fence up at Stearns Park nearly 70% of the year, put up and taken down a week before and after peak tourist season between holiday weekends.  We can do better than that and protect ourselves from most every windstorm that may hit the beach, even during tourist season by having a strong reactive approach rather than a misguided proactive approach that has fence up 250 days every year.  

[stump]

  Apparently most of you haven't driven the sterns drive in  the last week. As I drove through the other day it was like I was on Mac woods dune ride. The sand was totally across the pavement and probably 4 - 6" deep. The next day It was scrapped down to the pavement. What would make you think that the sand even with the fencing wouldn't just pile up on the grass and keep on going? Then you have a extended beach again. You would have to have a wall quite high to keep the sand on the beach but also the sand would have to be removed from the front of the wall as the sand will build up and just blow right over leaving us with the same problem, sand on the drive. Mother nature will have her way no matter what is done. On the gulf coast they put in long  mounds with dune grass and also lowered the beach level so the sand stops before the road, well not always. The county hired a research firm to figure out what to do about the sand blowing onto the road, they only spent $100,000. to figure that out.

[shinblind]

Stump,if that much sand is blowing across the road then what they are currently doing isn't working real well.

I would expect the sand to pile up on the grass not the road if there was a grass strip.. When the wind stops blowing the sand could be blown back towards the Lake with a tractor driven debris blower. The cost on the blower is between $2,000-$5,000, the City all ready has the tractor.

A fence rather than a wall would allow the sand to be blown back plus give the option of temporarily installing the sand fence whenever a big blow is forecast in the summer.  The fence could be of the bed rail design like along the West End Scheme.

Also they could look into renting an impact roller to see if it would have any effect on the blowing sand.

What they are doing now is labor intensive and ineffective.

Hopefully this City Manager is more open to new ideas.

Doing things over and over and hoping for better results doesn't really work.

[Willy]

I don't think anything other than portable fence will do the job because if not one grain of sand blows we still have snow and that can pile up much higher and faster than sand. Because of the cost, timing and when the winds blow Ludington is stuck with these fences. It would be nice to find a way to delay them but I don't think that's going to happen. i took some photos of the 2010 Stearns Park sand, posted below.

[stump]

  Willy, do you recall the date of the pictures?  No fences up, It sure does show without the fences what can and does happen. I heard that the city has to clean off the sand that gets blown across the park and M11 onto private property? is that true?  Big vacuum job.

[Willy]

Stump. The photos were taken between Sept. 4 and Sept. 9 of 2010. The sand clean up cost for private property may be one reason for the early fence installment. I'm sure the property owners on the east side of the street had a lot to say about it. 

[shinblind]

Thanks for the photo's Willy.

That happened over Labor Day Weekend in 2010.

Labor Day that year was the 6th.

The only was to diminish  this would have been to start installing the sand barrier the last week in August.

Also the level of Lake Michigan was still low when this happened. There was a lot more beach and a lot more sand to be blown around.

[Willy]

Then the clean up $$$$

[stump]

Great pictures Willy. Fences are clearly up shown in Willy's last picture. Were they up before the big wind?  What a massive clean up job the crew had that year. That's a lot of sand they had to remove. 

[Willy]

I took the photos of the clean up on Sept. 19, 2010. The photos are showing snow fences because they were installed after the windstorm. The image below was taken on Sept. 9 2010 and clearly shows the lack of fences.

[shinblind]

I checked out the weather data  for September 2010.

On September 3 the wind started blowing NW 20 mph gusting to 30.

The wind settled down on the early hours of the 4th.

And stayed that way until September 7. 

Then after midnight on the 7th the winds again picked up from the S switching to SW then straight W  20-30 mph with gusts over 40.

It continued on September 8 switching direction to the NW while maintaining 20 mph with gusts to 30. It continued finally settling down in the afternoon.

By the 9th the wind had gone E with no gusting.

Data was from Muskegon via Weather Underground.

Keep in mind that September 6 was Labor Day.  Other than keep the roads open there was little done that holiday weekend and on the 7th the next wind event happened.

[XLFD]

As shinblind has pointed out, Labor Day was September 6 in 2010, weather records show the wind storms started on the third and went all the way through Labor Day, you took some pictures during a lull on September 5th seen here.  As shinblind mentions, another wind storm rode piggyback so the effect was even worse.

If we had in place in 2010 the city's current policy which we have used over the year's since (to erect sand fences up a week after Labor Day), we still would have saw the same devastation in 2010.  Yet...

If we had a way of installing a permanent-posted reactive fence as I have proposed at the east end of Stearns Drive in 2010, the sand would have not went beyond that point, cleanup and repatriation of sand would have gone a lot faster, and we may have even had time enough to put in secondary sand fences for the troutnado we knew was coming that Labor Day weekend. 

No need to worry about it being an eyesore to tourists that weekend, for if they went to the beach to look out over the waters, all they would have got was eyesore from all the sand blowing in their peepers.

[Willy]

In the series of 4 images above the 2nd photo down was taken on Sept. 4 2010 at around 10am. It's the photo with the speed limit sign and red truck. Below is a clip of that image.